


Softly Softly Catchy Monkey

by swaneewhistleandkazoo



Series: Agents of Shield Finale. [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Adorable FitzSimmons (Agents of SHIELD), Agents of Shield 7x12-7x13, Canon Compliant, Childbirth, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Family, Fluff and Angst, Missing Scene, POV Jemma Simmons, POV Leo Fitz, Pregnancy, Spoilers, fitzsimmons family, spoilers for aos finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:22:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25939615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swaneewhistleandkazoo/pseuds/swaneewhistleandkazoo
Summary: An idiom meaning a slow and careful way to reach your goal.Journeying through the Quantum Realm Fitz tries to jog Jemma’s memory.
Relationships: Leo Fitz/Jemma Simmons
Series: Agents of Shield Finale. [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1882555
Comments: 12
Kudos: 123





	1. Fitz

All in all Fitz’s second trip through to the Quantum Realm is a markedly more pleasant than his first trip. For one thing he’s within the solid protection of the Zephyr with his team and his Jemma. Not hurtling alone through a strange dimension with only the meagre protection of his suit and helmet, the forces involved had shaken him so much it felt like his skeleton had turned to skittles.

He knows it unfair for him to be so short tempered with the team and so seemingly callous to the residents of this alternate timeline by being willing to abandon them to their uncertain future. But he doesn’t have time, they have to get back to Alya. Their little girl needs them and he’s frantic with worry, he’s only been away from her for a few minutes and it feels like he’s been ripped in two. How Jemma coped with having a part of herself torn away for so many weeks he’ll never know? Granted she doesn't actually remember what she’s missing but the maternal bond is more powerful than memory and he knows that she’s been walking around with a hollow frantic feeling that she’s left something important behind.

“Okay. Okay” He explains, faltering for a moment as he realising the gravity of what he has to do to an impatient Mack, who was practically vibrating with the need to go a save the world. “I need…I need to take things slow with her. Or her mind might collapse.”

How he wishes this was Disney and all he’d need to do is would be to sweep Jemma up in is arms and give Jemma a true love’s kiss and all of her memories would come rushing back and the birds would sing, they’d be a family again and all live happily ever after.

He is Jemma’s Prince lost in the stars after all.

But this isn’t Disney this is real life and there are no such guarantees of them even surviving let alone a happy ever after so he has to be careful.

_Softly Softly Catchee Monkey._

“Just get her to remember you.” Mack’s low voice rumbles reassuringly around the crowded lab, he’s so happy to see him. “That’s the most important thing.”

“No its not” He anxiously fusses with his wedding ring twisting it around and around his ring finger. Alya is, she’s their everything the stars in their skies and if this doesn’t work the Chronicoms will have ripped their daughter’s mother away from her and leave Jemma as she is now utterly bereft, lost and grief stricken and it will be all his fault.

The battling through space and time to be together pales in comparison to the challenge he’s facing now. But he has to find a way to help her remember if not him then at least their Alya otherwise he’s failed her and even worse he’ll have failed their daughter.

“I need to take something small that she does remember.” His hands try to vaguely gesticulate the magnitude of he has to do. “And then I’m gonna draw a line from that to all of the rest.”

_Brains never delete files, they just lose connections. But there's always a backup, it's just a matter of digging and finding them._

_So long as the back up files still exist._

Jemma had told him that when he'd woken up from his coma a had been struggling to recover from his injuries.

His mouth is dry with nerves as he turns to look at her, They’d known it was a possibility that Jemma may forget him, forget Alya and their life together but to see Jemma, his beautiful, brilliant Jemma, his partner in everything restlessly kneading her temples in a vain effort to ease the ache she feels, she knows she's lost something can feel it deep in her soul but the memories slip through her grasp like smoke through her finger. She looks so lost, adrift in a swirling maelstrom of incoherent memories and the emotions the memories prompt that hurts more than any pain he’s ever felt.

“Jemma?”

Once she’d told him that the most awful part of their time in the Framework wasn’t the world being taken over by nazi-esque fascist dictatorship or that he’d been twisted into a sadistic sociopath brainwashed into “loving” that harpy. No, the worst part of being in the Framework for her was when he’d looked at her without any recognition or love, she’s been nothing to him. He hadn’t understood it then he does now. He’s so used to seeing the love she feels for him shining in her eyes and that lack of that recognition or emotion when she looks up at him feels like a hundred punches to the stomach.

Its his worse nightmare. He's nothing to her right now.

He swallowed hard and the words rush out “I was gonna tell your friends a story and I was wondering if you could help me…. fill in the blanks?”

“It’s okay” Daisy soothes her as she glances towards the person she trusts like as sister over the strange man holding out his heart in hand to her. “We know him.”

“Yeah” Unable to help himself he takes a step closer to them “And I know some things about you too. Like when you were younger you had scoliosis…Yeah?” A slight frown like something he’s said sound familiar too her flickered across her pale face, buoyed up that that encouragement he continued his spiel. “And you would send your night’s lying on your back… with your father….”

“…looking up at the stars” The wondering expression on her face loosens the iron bands constricting his chest and he can breathe slightly more easily now.

“Yeah.” He can feel a relieved grin start to spread across his face as a shaking sigh of relief escapes him. She’s still there, her memories are still there and all he has to do now it guide her way back to them. Draw a line from what she does remember to all of the rest of them.

“And do you remember what your favourite star was?” He askes her with some trepidation.

“Theta Serpentis” The wave of relief he feels is indescribable, they’ve drawn one dot together now for the rest.

Theta Serpentis. Her favourite constellation, it had barely been a blip to him in his knowledge of the cosmos. Now he loves it more than anything. Two binary stars eternally orbiting each other, forever drawn towards each other and the third star, Alya the biggest and brightest one there is orbits it’s binary stars. It’s fitting perhaps that they grew their little family there. 

“Though technically...It’s was..a…er…” She fumbles for the words “…It was a triple star system in the constellation Serpens…”

“That’s right. That’s right.” He interrupts her before she can launch fully into a lecture around the constellation. “And what was the traditional name of it? The biggest star in that system?”

She blinked at him, probably wondering why this strange man was quizzing her about a random star system in the middle of no-where “Alya.”

“Yeah” He’s overflowing with adoration for her and he can’t help but smile lovingly at her. Even if she has no idea who he is.

He has no idea if any of the others are still in the room with them because his world has contacted so that she is all he can see, he’s speaking to her only.

“Okay I want you to lock onto that memory because that is where we went…”

_*_

_When Jemma had come to him with the suspicion that she might be pregnant admittedly he’d been conflicted, ecstasy and panic had clashed in a furious war inside him. They’re trying to figure out an almost impossible problem, their friends lives are at stake, Earth has been invaded by androids, they’re light years from any kind of medical help and he’s never even held a baby before in his life. He has no idea how to be a father because his own had buggered off when he was young and if the framework simulation of Alistair Fitz was any indication it was probably for the best._

_His mind had been a muddled rush as he tried to figure out the time frame where they might have conceived._

_How long do babies take to cook again?_

_He hoped to God that she hadn’t been pregnant when they were on the Lazy Comet on the run from Izel’s possessed crew. Or was it just after the homecoming party when they had escaped the prying eyes of their friends and enjoyed a more leisure reunion because if so those Hunters had nearly killed their precious little ball of cells and the thought of that turned his vision red with rage. Or was their child conceived here among the stars?_

_But the more he’d thought about Jemma carrying their baby while she ran her blood work to confirm it, the larger and larger the little fission of happiness he’d felt alongside his initial fear bubbled up inside his soul, beating back his concerns until it burst a supernova of elation._

_Their Baby! He’s thought about children, he knows Jemma definitely has. But they always seemed like only a vague shadowy possibility due to the fact that something keeps trying to kill them every other minute or so. Now their baby is here, barely more than a little ball of cells but it’s here and he’d thought that there wasn’t enough room in his heart for him to love anyone other than Jemma he;s happy to be wrong. He already loves their child more than anything in the universe._

_If Jemma is his guiding north star then their baby is everything, the stars in his sky._

_It’s a good thing they’re building a Time Machine. The team is relying on them but for the first time in a long time he wants to put themselves first, to take the time just to live and be, together. He’s tired, so desperately tired of being separated from all he loves, of living in constant fear of the next big bad coming their way and having to save the world over and over._

_He wants the time with Jemma and their baby. They deserve some peace._

_Thank God Jemma agreed with him when the test came back positive._

_*_

_The first time he feels their baby kick is a revelation._

_Jemma of course has felt the baby’s movements for a bit now, she’d dropped her mug to shatter on the floor of the kitchen when she’d felt that first little quickening, fluttering like the wings of a butterfly against her abdominal muscles. Delighted he’d pressed his trembling hand to her gently swelling bump and tried to feel what she was feeling but it was too faint for him to perceive._

_Disappointed but understanding he’d resigned himself to wait._

_Then one night before bed when he’s reading the Zephyr’s engineering manual to the little squish while Jemma sips calmly the cup of tea he’d brought her does he feel it. A little tap against his palm where it rests on her abdomen. Wide eyed and gaping in astonishment he’d met Jemma’s warm gaze and immediately pressed a little harder and he was rewarded more little taps against his hand._

_“That’s amazing” He’d told Jemma when their baby eventually quietens down and he like to think gone to sleep. “You feel that all the time?”_

_“Not all the time” She replied sleepily as she reached out to place her mug on the bedside table and pull him close to her snuggling down in preparation to sleep. “Just sometimes.”_

_“Yeah?” He reached out to turn their light off if he stretches he can just reach the switch with the very tips of his fingers without disturbing her too much._

_“Yeah.” She ran her fingers across the width of his chest, testing the thin cotton of his t-shirt, the warm weight of her palm resting on one of his pecs made him suspect that she had a little more than sleep on her mind right now. “The baby likes the sound of your voice.”_

_“Really?” He asked in amazement his fingers trailing along the achingly soft skin of her collarbone and up to bury his hand in the rich waves of her hair. "The baby knows who I am?"_

_She gave him a long look and a soft smile “Whenever you speak I can feel it moving.”_

_*_

_Alya’s birth is the most petrified he’s ever been in his entire life._

_Because he could lose both of them. Childbirth is still one of the greatest risks to a woman’s life even in modern times and they are around 160 lights years from medical intervention._

_Contractions come in waves, like a giant hand squeezing his wife’s abdomen and there is absolutely nothing he can do. He can coach her through her breathing, beg her to take little sips of water and offer her his hands to grip so tightly he can feel his bones grinding together._

_Enoch is once again their angel. Part of being an Anthropologist he tells them is learning all aspect of human life. This of course includes child birth and since he’s been on the Earth for thousands of years their Chronicom friend has had ample opportunity to observe and has most recently refreshed his midwifery in the early 2000s._

_It’s agony to watch the love of his life in pain, to struggle and labour to bring their baby into the world. But when Alya arrives in his unsteady hands, red and squeaking her displeasure at being ejected from her warm safe home of the last nine month everything just melts away. He is no longer Leopold James Fitz, he is her Father and he will move heaven and earth for her._

_Moving quickly he brings Alya up to Jemma’s reaching arms and carefully deposits their daughter onto her mother’s chest. All they can both do is gaze in wonder at what they have created and just like that all the pain and fear from labour is erased._

_“Alya” Jemma croons as she cradled their baby to her “Oh Alya”_

_*_

_We knew it would take a while to complete our designs._

_Could take some time just to ...live._

_*_

A flash of recognition and remembrance flickers across Jemma’s face. “And we did!” She exclaimed.

“Yeah we did. For years.” His hands are clasped together, pressed against his sternum where his heart is rapidly throwing itself against to escape the cage of his ribs and return to where it belongs.

Guiltily he glanced over at Mack and Daisy “We knew our friends needed us not to mention mankind so we put it off.” Hopefully their friends won’t think too badly of them for taking their time and they’ll definitely understand why they took their time when they meet Alya. “But we couldn’t stay forever…”

He couldn’t contain his restlessness and want to rush back to their child anymore so he started to place the room’s not big enough but it allows him to work of some of that relentless anxiety. “…So we jumped back to the moment we left.”

_For us it will be an instant_ He’d told Jemma and he yearned for that to be true for Alya’s sake.

“One of us had to stay to establish the link between timelines and it had to be me” He will never be able to make it up to either of his girl for having to put that horrible thing in Jemma’s mind and erase her memories because his own is to damaged by drowning and the framework to handle the stain “Because my mind couldn’t handle the implant.”

“I didn’t see the rest.” He continued “But now we know it worked.”

He hopes she can hear in his voice how sorry he is for her to have to go through that.

“You were with me the whole time” Jemma voice was full of wonder and she’s not looking at him like she doesn’t know him anymore. Her love for him is starting to shine back in her eyes again and he heaves a heavy sigh of relief, her memories are still in her extraordinary mind and her brilliance is already rebuilding the connections between them.

“Fitz”

He’s always loved how she says his name but this, this, his name falling from her lips as she remembers him feels like a benediction from heaven itself.

“Yeah” He greets her breathlessly.

Tentatively they beam at each other before another wave of confusion passes over her face again and his buoyed up hope is weighed down again. She doesn’t understand why they waited so long, it doesn’t make sense to her. She doesn’t remember the most important part, the reason they did any of this.

Alya.

Their Everything.

The stars in their skies.

It distressing see her so disordered, disorientated by the guilt and grief she feels over being separated from their daughter she doesn’t even remember. But he can’t push any more right now or it will be too much for her.

Slow and steady, don't overwhelm the system.

It was a long shot for Jemma to remember it all at once especially the reason they pushed D.I.A.N.A to the limits of its capabilities to ensure that Alya cannot be found, just her remembering him is enough for now. 

He just has to take it slowly. He's already proved that her memories are still in there he has to trust that the rest will come out with time.

_Softy Softly Catchee Monkey._ He reminds himself as he goes to fill the team in on what they're fighting for.


	2. Simmons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Simmons remembers her missing memories.

Chaos reigns in her head and inside her heart.

She’s drowning, a sinking swimmer caught up in a riptide. Memories, incoherent and fragmented, swirl in a raging torrent and behind it all an impenetrable dam block away the most precious memories of all. A constant barrage of thoughts and feeling deluge through her mind retained for a moment, by just the barest tip of her fingers. Before they’re shredded away in a raging current and she’s dragged closer and closer to madness.

_Why would you make me do this? You're my best friend in the world!”_

_“Yeah. And you're more than that, Jemma.”_

_“I love you”_

_“And you mean nothing to me. I want to hear you say it._

_"I am nothing to you." Say it! Say it!”_

The chaos in her heart is worst though. There’s a great hollow hysterical ache in her chest where her heart is supposed to be and the emptiness wars with a primal panic and overwhelming fear for governance of her.

Something’s missing, something, someone, some one very important?

It feels like she’s been ripped in two, the combined tidal wave of excruciating heartbreak and miserable desolation cause so much aguish. It’s a raw ragged wound bleeding out in her soul that it feels like she shouldn’t be able to be walking around and breathing with such a huge part of herself missing.

Like she shouldn't even be alive without the missing part of herself.

Her arms feel….empty and there’s a cold hollow space beside her where someone should be but isn’t. His missing presence, the lack of the weight of his comforting hand on her shoulder makes her feel weightless, unmoored like she could be carried away on the current at any moment.

The people she’s with she knows that she can trust them with her life even though it’s only a feeling as she has no concrete proof, it’s just something she know without question. Like how she knew about how to put that weird machine together and how she knows that she’s married.

_“You know I realized something. The Universe, can't stop us. Because we have crossed galaxies, we have travelled through time, we have survived the bottom of the Atlantic just so we can be together, now a love like that, that is stronger than any curse. And you and I, we are unstoppable together. I...I don't wanna live another day without you. So Jemma Simmons, will you marry me?”_

Why can’t she remember him?

_“My life. My heart. My home.”_

She knows she loves her husband with a certainty, permanence and fierceness that is frightening in the depths of its magnitude. 

Why can’t she remember him?

She can remember the smell of his hair, which isn’t surprising really. The sense of smell is one of the strongest senses humans possess. Scent is handled by the olfactory bulb, the structure in the front of the brain that sends in information to the other areas of the body’s central command for further processing. Odours then take a direct route to the limbic system, including the amygdala and the hippocampus, the regions related to emotion and memory.

She can smell his hair but his face is an indistinct shadow slipping like smoke through her fingertips.

Something else is gone as well.

Something so much more important, much more precious.

But unlike her husband she has no recollection of what this most important thing is, not even the vaguest hint of what it could be. It’s locked away behind the mile high dam encircled by the raging moat of her other memories. Only an overwhelming sense of loss and primeval instinctive protectiveness towards whatever it is remains.

Deke’s gone. Her darling weirdo of a Grandson. Or does Deke not exist yet? Or did Deke ever exist at all? It’s so confusing. All she knows is his presence was reassuring, a touchstone for her shattered mind in the midst of all the disarray and now he’s gone. 

From a great distance she can hear the other’s talking to the strange man who appeared out of the ceiling, knew her name and tried to hug her. She’d shoved him away because she didn’t know who he was and he wasn’t the man she loved but the resigned devastation she’d glimpsed in his incredibly blue eyes had simultaneously made her want to enfold him in her arms until all the hurt went away.

The memories eddy and cloud over again into a hazy sea of fog.

“Jemma?” She looks up at the strange man when he tentatively calls her name to catch her attention. His rolling Scottish brogue is both soothing to her churning emotions and riling up her fractious memories.

Oh, he’s beautiful. Just so beautiful to her.

Most people would call him attractive or even handsome with his brilliantly blue eyes, the scruff on his jaw covering his strong intelligent features but to her he’s something more than that. He’s miraculous, wondrous, magnificent.

To her, he is beautiful.

And the storm of emotions, like a pain that feels good, he invokes in her is beautiful too.

The man swallowed hard, she can see his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat and the words rush out like he can’t quite control himself. “I was gonna tell your friends a story and I was wondering if you could help me…. fill in the blanks?”

“It’s okay” Daisy soothes her as she glances towards the person she trusts like as sister over the strange man holding his hand out to her. “We know him.”

His expression is so earnest, so hopeful that she finds herself nodding slightly in agreement.

“Yeah” As if he’s unable to help himself he takes a step closer to them “And I know some things about you too. Like when you were younger you had scoliosis…Yeah? And you would send your night’s lying on your back… with your father….””

She can picture it, lying miserable in that ghastly contraption unable to sleep at night she’s so uncomfortable and her Dad coming into her room with all of its familiar items in their familiar places. And how he’d laid on top of the covers with her and told her all about the stars, the constellations they made up and the legends behind them.

Greek, Babylonian, Chinese myths and legends her father had swept her up in weaving those tales. It hadn’t mattered then she’d been stuck in the back brace, her mind had been free to go adventuring with those ancient heroes. 

“…looking up at the stars” She murmured softly letting the memory of that time fill her mind.

“Yeah.” His loving grin shines with so much relief it’s palpable. She wants to stare at him forever.

“And do you remember what your favourite star was?”

She’d had many favourites. Virgo, her own star sign which had its origins in Babylonian society and connected legends of goddess who ruled over the harvest. The constellation of Leo with its connection with the first of the twelve labours of Hercules where Hercules had been sent to defeat the Nemean Lion. This lion was fearless and he couldn't be harmed by weapons but Hercules had tougher and braver and defeated the lion.

But they hadn’t been her favourite stars.

“Theta Serpentis”

Serpens represented the snake held by the mythical Greek healer Asclepius. Asclepius had once killed a snake but the snake was subsequently resurrected after a second snake placed a revival herb on it before its death. As snakes shed their skin every year, they were known as the symbol of rebirth in ancient Greek society, and legend says Asclepius would revive dead humans using the same technique he witnessed.

As a budding biologist that story had been endlessly fascinating to her child self.

In reality Theta Serpentis was even more interesting as it consisted of two binary stars forever drawn towards each other and the third star, the biggest and brightest one there is orbiting them.

“Though technically...It’s was..a…er…” It’s hard to order her thoughts into sentences. The words feel thick in her mouth. “…It was a triple star system in the constellation Serpens…”

“That’s right. That’s right.” To her annoyance he interrupted her before she can tell him everything she could recall about the constellation. “And what was the traditional name of it? The biggest star in that system?”

The tip of the serpent’s tail is marked by star Theta Serpentis, traditionally called Alya.

It makes her feel…happy… whole…. a rubik’s cube solved to think about Alya. 

Stunned by the happiness the thoughts of Alya wells up, she blinked at him wonderingly “Alya.”

“Yeah” His tender smile is so overflowing with love it touches a place deep inside her heart and soul and triggers a cascade of something hidden deep down inside.

If the others are still in the room she can’t tell because all that exists to her is his rolling Scottish brogue and the memories they incite in her.

“Okay I want you to lock onto that memory because that is where we went…”

*

_They’re sixteen and achingly shy._

_He’s pasty and pale. So very very smart. Painfully awkward with anything that doesn’t have internal wiring. Kinda manic, sometimes she watches him working and muttering to himself and mull over to herself how madness and genius are just a tick away from each other and finds herself worrying over him._

_And she finds him devastatingly handsome._

_And not interested in her._

_It’s disappointing to have to put Fitz in the friend zone because she had a feeling they could have been so much more than that. But he hasn’t given her any signs that he’s interested. If fact she’s never seen him have much interest in anyone. But then she wouldn’t have had made such a wonderful friend._

_A fellow scientist, genius, Dr Who fan, they can talk to each other about anything and everything._

_The best friend in the whole world._

_Her best friend._

_*_

_Fitz is a limp dead weight against her. His bleached pale face lolling lifelessly against her collarbone as she tries desperately to keep both of their heads above the water. His lips are terrifyingly shade of blue and she can’t tell if he’s breathing as it takes all of her strength to keep them afloat and she’s too afraid to adjust her grip in fear of losing her grip on him. Losing her Fitz to the dark, cold abyss of the Atlantic Ocean away from her forever._

_He’ll be absolutely furious when he wakes up and realises she didn’t save herself like he told her too._

_Why would you make me do this? You're my best friend in the world!”_

_“Yeah. And you're more than that, Jemma."_

_His words are burned into her brain and she sobbed nearly swallowing a mouthful of bitter sea water._

_There’s a hand reaching for her. She’s so exhausted that she doesn’t care who or what it is. So long as it can save them._

_She’ll pay any price for Fitz to be Okay._

_*_

_He’s not okay and her presence is making him worse._

_Her leaving might make him better, might make him worse but he has to learn a new way for things for himself and she’s being his crutch because she can’t bear to watch him struggle._

_To kiss his sleeping forehead in a silent goodbye before picking up her bag and going into deep cover within Hydra is one of the hardest things she’s ever had to do._

_*_

_She can’t believe he’s here reaching for her, his expression set and determined like he’s going to save her or die trying._

_Fitz’s fingers are suddenly yanked away from hers and he’s being dragged away from her into the stinging sandstorm._

_For a moment she’s afraid that the It has gotten Fitz and killed him before she spots him several metres away. He is being dragged away from her but not by the It but by the anchor cable his clipped to his belt. She’s momently dumbfounded that Fitz jumped through a hole in the universe with nothing but a wish and a pray and a rope tying him like an umbilical cord to safety._

_That’s the moment when she truly realised how much he loves her._

_He’d told her that but this is empirical evidence, proof of the lengths he’d go for her. But this was beyond rational and irrational._

_And she’d through sacrificing himself to save her had been the limit._

_Teeth bared, Fitz planted his feet in the sand and with a colossal effort, straining against the very thing pulling him to safety lunges for her. This time, this time their hands connect and his grip is so sure and strong even his bad hand._

_He’s not letting go of her._

_Not for hell or high water._

_*_

_“You dove through a hole in the universe for me!”_

_She’s always hated it when Fitz put himself down around other men. Alistair Fitz had made it so his son could never see his true worth._

_For a moment he stared at her breathing hard and she can see the pulse beating furiously at the base of his throat and in a sudden explosive movement he’s kissing her, pressed up against the worktop, hotly, passionately._

_Its…Its… Everything._

_It’s over as suddenly as it starts and he’s backing away looking shocked at his own audacity. She can’t help but kiss him again. Properly cupping his dear face, feeling the pleasurable rough scratch of his beard against her fingers as he draws her more firmly against him._

_“We’re cursed” He tells her bitterly, backing away with tears in his eyes as she goes to kiss him again._

_*_

_Crossing the event horizon._

_It’s perfect._

_Nothing else needs to be said._

_*_

_“You understand that my love will never fade.”_

_“No, I know. Poor thing. You're a romantic. And there's only room in your heart...”_

_“... for her.”_

_*_

_His proposals, both of them._

_The one she didn’t hear._

_“You know I realized something. The Universe, can't stop us. Because we have crossed galaxies, we have travelled through time, we have survived the bottom of the Atlantic just so we can be together, now a love like that, that is stronger than any curse. And you and I, we are unstoppable together. I...I don't wanna live another day without you. So Jemma Simmons, will you marry me?”_

_And the one she did._

_“I've realized the universe can't stop us, because we've survived the bottom of the Atlantic, we've crossed the galaxy- more than once - just to be together. So... a love like that is stronger than any curse. You and I, we're-”_

_“We're unstoppable together.”_

_“Yeah, which is why I can't live another day without you. So, I'm asking you, heart in hand... Jemma Simmons, will you marry me?”_

_“Absolutely.”_

_*_

_Dearly beloved….._

_….I now pronounce you._

_Except now she can see his face it’s no longer shadowy and indistinct._

_*_

_Taking some time just to live._

*

She’s no longer drowning in a sea of disjointed and fragmented memories. Fitz has done what they originally planned drew a line from something small she does remember and joining the dots together until everything falls into place again.

“And we did!” She exclaimed, delighting to have memories that make sense again.

“Yeah we did. For years.” His hands are clasped together, pressed against his sternum. “We had our happily ever after.”

He glanced guiltily over at Mack and the other “We knew our friends needed us not to mention mankind so we put it off.”

And they were happy together, they had a wonderful life together. But why had it taken them so long? Why did they decide to wait? There’s an irritating niggle at the base of her skull and the hollow empty hysterical feeling in her chest hasn’t lifted.

There’s something missing, that he’s not telling her. Frantically Jemma runs through her memories again looking for something she’s missed. But that’s the thing about missing memories you don’t remember what or even that you’re missing something.

But your emotions do. Because emotions are more than just electrical pathways in the brain they're hormones and trigger physical change in the body

“But we couldn’t stay forever…” There’s a impatience, a fretfulness in Fitz she’s not seen for a long time. It’s an air he used to project back at the Academy when all he wanted to do was escape from something that frustrated or frightened him. Fitz has gotten better at hiding it over the years but for some reason he’s not even attempting to hide his frustration and apprehension. He wants to go somewhere, do something but she can’t for the life of her figure out what it is. “…So we jumped back to the moment we left. One of us had to stay to establish the link between timelines and it had to be me. Because my mind couldn’t handle the implant.”

“I didn’t see the rest.” He continued “But now we know it worked.”

“You were with me the whole time” She tells him. He’s always with her even when they are apart, working his way to get back to her. The look of relief on his face is profound and the great sigh he releases is the only outward sign of how worried he’s been that she wouldn’t remember him.

“Fitz”

Saying his name and the rush of memories his name invokes is heavenly.

“Yeah”

Tentatively they beam at each other before another wave of confusion hits. There’s something missing and the fact she doesn’t remember fills her up with so much guilt and actual physical pain.

Something’s been misplaced and she misses and loves that something very much. Her arms are empty, aching. She doesn’t understand why they waited so long, it doesn’t any make sense to her. She doesn’t remember the most important part, the reason why they waited, why they did any of this.

“She’s remembers that she knows him, just not that she loves him.”

She wants to scoff at Daisy’s assessment. How could she remember Fitz and not remember how much she loves him?

It’s beyond comprehension.

But why did they stay so long? She can’t follow that logic.

The memories are in there but they’re hidden away from the rest of the maelstrom by an impenetrable dam.

_It doesn’t make any sense._

_It doesn’t make any sense,_

_It doesn’t make any sense._

_They’re fighting for something? What are they fighting for?_

*

She remembers now.

It hits like a ton of bricks when she hears Yo-Yo and Sousa worrying over their significant others. It had been slightly amusing listening to them worry over two of the most capable people on the planet. If she had to put money on which two people could walk onto an alien spaceship, make it explode and walk away unscathed Mack and Daisy after everything they’ve been through, they would be her number one choices.

Closely followed by May and Coulson.

As much as they both know that Mack and Daisy are more that capable at taking care of themselves its natural for Yo-Yo and Sousa to worry about them.

Because they love them.

They are everything to them.

The stars… in their skies.

Alya.

The dam bursts. Memory rushing back in, refilling the parched landscape they left behind.

“Fitz” Her entire world is shifting on its axis as she remembers their daughter and she needs his reassuring presence to confirm what she knows in her heart to be true.

Their daughter, their little girl. The love she feels for her is all encompassing and without fathom. A primal instinctive bond with her child, that she carried and loved even more than Fitz. That they’d do anything for including locking up her memories of so tightly so the Chronicoms would not be able to touch her. Just to ensure that she has a bright future.

Alya, the part of herself that was torn away settling back into its proper position.

_The terrible sneaking suspicion she’s had when she’d missed her period and the terribly long wait it had taken to run the blood tests to confirm what she feared and long for._

_The all encompassing love that had burst forth from nowhere when their suspicions had been confirmed. Fitz had been overwhelmed with joy, with an ecstatic beam of joy etched onto his face as in the absence of having anyone other than Enoch to tell he’d run haphazardly around the Zephyr bellowing at all of the machinery that they were going to have a baby. Then he’d knelt down and buried his face against her abdomen and in a slightly muffled voice talked to their baby, telling it how happy they were that it was coming. She’d laughed and half-heartedly tried to push him away saying that the baby didn’t have ears yet and could hear him. Eyes shining he’d told her he didn’t care and went right back to telling their baby how much he loves it._

_Those first movements as light as butterfly wing brushing against abdomen, which slowly grew into firmer kicks and summersaults as the baby practiced for the baby S.H.I.E.L.D assault course._

_The pain and fear of Alya’s birth erased the moment Fitz placed their baby on her chest and they’d both gazed down in loving amazement at who they have created._

_Showing Alya the star’s in the cockpit of the Zephyr and pointing out to her which one was Earth._

Fitz smiled lovingly at her his expression alive with joy and relief. She didn’t need to tell him, he already knew. He’d had complete faith in her and in them.

“I think I know what we’re fighting for.”

Alya, her heart longs to rush to her and never let her go again. Fitz she knows is struggling with the same urge, but it isn’t over yet they have to play their part in the plan in order for it to succeed.

Not long now.

They’ll be together again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed. 
> 
> I had a lot of fun learning about Olfactory memory and the myths and legends behind different star signs, although my knowledge of them is limited to what you can google.
> 
> Scent is very powerful when it comes to memory. That's why when you smell something say for example the scent of the ocean your transported back to when you went on holiday as a kid. 
> 
> Star signs. That was fun. I used both Jemma and Fitz's birth signs, Virgo and Leo. Leo is appropriately Fitz's.
> 
> This was originally just going to be two parts of both Fitz and Simmons PoV of the Flashbacks but I want to finish up with their reunion with Alya which hopefully will be posted soon.
> 
> Your comments and kudos are as always deeply appreciated.


	3. Alya

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fitz and Simmons reunite with Alya.

The fear pounding in his heart out races the pounding of their feet.

Leaves whip at his face as air saws painfully in and out of his chest as his lungs protest at how humid it is in the Jungle.

But none of that matters.

It doesn’t matter he and Jemma are both exhausted, that she’s traumatised from the last few weeks, that the loose soil of the jungle does not make an adequate surface to run on.

Just keep running.

He can disregard the pain, the discomfort, his exhaustion so long as their little girl is safe.

His and Jemma’s utmost terror, which they fearfully pondered while preparing for their last mission, is the possibility that within the time loops they change something and Alya, their precious baby girl would be erased from existence.

That… that would be too much for them both to cope with. An incomprehensible, inconsolable loss that devastated them both to just consider the possibility.

So it doesn’t matter that they’ve defeated the Chronicoms, restored the timeline and saved the whole damn world. They should be celebrating with their team, the success of another mission completed and more importantly they’ve all survived it. But he and Jemma can’t. From the moment Mack confirmed to them that Daisy was alive and safe they were no longer experience SHIELD agents or brilliant scientists that had just solved bloody time travel for god’s sake.

They were distraught parents who just desperately wanted to make sure their child was safe.

So until he and Jemma are reunited with Alya and she’s safe in their arms and their little family is all together again….

…He can’t stop…. He won’t stop… Not for anything….Anyone…

They’d left Agent Sousa and Yo-Yo with no explanation to deal with the herd of neutered Chronicom hunters and the bodies of their fallen agents to clear up and using Enoch’s stolen Inter-Planetary Conveyance Disc, jumped as close as they could to where they’d left Alya with her unknowing babysitters.

Jemma is outpacing him slightly, her long chestnut hair billowing like a banner in her wake stream driven by her unrelenting need the reunite with her child. Love, he reflected is a very powerful thing, it can inspire some of humanities greatest and worst endeavours. It certainly has inspired some of his greatest and worst actions.

He’d thanked the universe, the old gods and the new, when Jemma’s memories of Alya had been reinstated to their proper place and she’d doubled over, arm’s wrapped protectively around her stomach as she had when her blood work had confirmed she was indeed pregnant.

He’s so fervently relieved that Jemma’s mind was whole again.

He’d dreaded having to try to explain to a three year old why her mother no longer remembers her.

After what felt like eternity sprinting through the armpit of the Earth. The gleaming white sides of the containment pod burst out of the gloomy forest like a beacon fire, breathing hard and with insects chirping loudly in his ears they skidded to a halt before a very confused looking Flint and Piper.

“Okay” The bewildered looking young Inhuman said “That was a neat trick.”

“But how did you...” Piper glared at them confusedly and turned sharply on her heels to slam her palm down of the door panel of the Quantum bridge side of the unit. With a load beep the door slid open to reveal the empty chamber.

Relieved he met Jemma’s anxious gaze, she still breathing hard from stress and exertion, relived because he wasn’t in there, because he’s hurtling through the Quantum Realm to reunite with the team there, relieved because the plan has worked, the world is saved and Alya is most likely still with them.

That’s the only thing that matters. It’s the only thing that ever mattered. The only reason they do anything is for her, saving the team, saving the world, it has all been for Alya and to ensure she has a safe future.

Through the pounding in his ears he can distantly hear Piper whirled around irately, irritated at having been guarding an apparently empty box. “What the hell, Man! We were scared out of our minds. Are you saying that we were guarding this thing for nothing?” Distantly he knows she’s right to be a little put out, they left her guarding the Unit with little explanation and like a good agent Piper had carried out her duty to the letter. But right now he doesn’t care about anything but reuniting with Alya, ruffled feathers are dammed.

“No.” He says emphatically to Piper. Heart in his mouth, he followed Jemma as she wordlessly rushed to the other side of the unit where there precious daughter was safely hidden form all that might harm her. “You were guarding Our Everything.”

Jemma paused, hand hovering hesitantly over that side of the Unit’s control panel and they shared a long look, silently communicating their mutual trepidation of opening that door and finding their daughter gone, after everything they’ve been through it would destroy them to have lost her. But the instinctive overpowering need to be with her child seems to steel her as she presses the command for the doors to slide open. 

Alya’s there, curled up under her blankets, surrounded by her stuffed animal friends, turning when Jemma calls her name. Delightedly responding to her Mamma as Jemma drops to her knees, laughing and sobbing at the same time with relief, as she enfolds Alya into her arms once again.

Their little girl is still there. Their little Monkey’s okay.

Faintly, as if from a great distance he can dimly hear Piper say “Holy shit you have a Kid!!!” and he hoped desperately that Alya does not learn a new word today.

The rush of relief he feels as he sees his girls reunited and safe once again is overwhelming and he nearly buckles under the immensity of it. It blots out any other thought and feeling in his mind and body as his knees go weak and for a second it’s all he can do to stop himself from collapsing. Before realising he doesn’t have to be strong right now and let’s himself fall down on the ground.

It’s sad that Deke wasn’t there with them, that he had to stay behind in the alternate timeline but he knows his Grandson will make the best of it. He’s brilliant, brave and a survivor above all else and he has no doubt that whatever Deke puts his mind to he will succeed.

_Before they’d left the alternate timeline as they had been dismantling and reconfiguring the Quantum Bridge and the Time Drive he’d pulled Deke to one side. Deke had stared at him confused by him suddenly wanting to speak to him and for the first time he saw Alya in her son. His heart had twisted painfully about not seeing his grandson again. Or for at least another 20 years._

_Numbly he managed to pull his wallet from his Jumpsuit’s pocket and fingers fumbling grip the photo Enoch had taken of the three of them at Alya’s last birthday and gave it over to Deke._

_Who stared at it with so much longing in his eyes._

_With the tip of his finger Deke had stroked Alya’s face. “Mom” he whispered achingly, tears spilling out and trickling down his cheeks as he’d gazed at the face of his mother for the first time since he was nine. For a moment Fitz thought that maybe he’d made a mistake showing Deke his mother when he wasn’t coming back with them._

_“Thank you” Deke muttered, tears still shining in his hazel eyes as though Fitz had given him a great gift. “My Mom…” He sniffed sadly. “…My Mom, she always told me you were the best man she ever knew…. Sh-she always spoke about you with so much love and admiration on her face. I know you’ll be that man again for her.”_

_“I will” He promised his Grandson before startling even himself pulled Deke into a hug. Deke clung to him of a moment just like Alya did when she was frightened._

_“Besides” Deke pulled away wiping his streaming eyes against his sleeve with a bit of his usual bravado. “You’ll be seeing me again someday.”_

_They definitely will because either Deke will figure out how to use the Quantum Bridge to jump between their timelines or because Alya is going to give birth to him one day._

_“I can’t wait.” He’d told his Grandson and he meant it._

“Mama?” Alya’s sweet voice broke through his reminiscing, gazing up adoringly at her Mother’s tearstained face “What's wrong?”

“Nothing, sweet girl. Nothing.” Jemma stroked their baby’s face and tried to smile through her tears. “I'm sorry. I'm sorry.”

It hurts that Jemma feels like she has something to be apologising for. She’s done nothing wrong and they would never had left her of even a second if the world hadn’t been ending and they’d rushed back the moment they were able to but it still feels akin to have deserting her.

Suddenly and he doesn’t know how or when he moved but he’s holding both of them and they’re holding him and everything is right in his world again.

He’s never understood how Alistair Fitz could just abandon his wife and son and he still doesn’t. It is inconceivable to him and he understands it even less and his rage towards that waste of a Man has increased tenfold.

Didn’t he worry about them? Didn’t he feel even a smidge of regret or concern about them? Fitz has for every moment of their separation yearned for and worried about Jemma and Alya. 

How’s he going to cope when Alya goes to school? Or starts dating? Marries that Shaw boy and gives birth to Deke?

He hadn’t understood it as a child or as a young man and now he’s a husband and father himself he cannot fathom leaving and never seeing his Jemma and Alya again… on purpose.

Every action, everything he does is for the sake of his family, to provide, support and protect them.

Because he loves them.

It’s as simple as that.

*

It takes a fair amount of doing but everything is packed up in the Quinnjet they left so long again now it seems before they went into space.

The Containment pod is safely stashed in the main hold and they’re on their way back to the Lighthouse.

Coulson, May, Mack, Daisy, Kora and Sousa are on route as well. He’s not really looking forward to the incoming chorus of “You have a Kid!!!” and having to explain to them exactly why he didn’t tell them. 

The reprogrammed Chronicoms have been rendered as harmless and helpful as his dear friend Enoch and are helping remove the bodies of the slain agents to a suitable resting place.

The world is saved from flying hell creatures from another dimension.

He, Jemma and Alya are safe and together again.

All in all, a successful mission.

A good day’s work.

He should feel victorious, proud that their plan came to fruition but there is a weariness in him now that there wasn’t before, he’s tired. He’s tired of the danger, the constant threats, the heartbreak and the losses. He’s tired of being separated from Jemma.

Jemma sitting on Alya’s bunk in the containment pod, leaning back against the wall her brown eyes half closed in contentment. Alya cuddled up on her lap, gripping her shirt tightly as Jemma hummed gently, soothingly stroking their sleeping daughter back. Their poor baby, she’s been so brave, only a little scared but she still needs the comfort from her parents. For a moment he allows himself to lean against the doorframe and absorb the peace of the sight of his Wife and Daughter together again and to let the normalcy of the scene fill him up like a warm drink.

Jemma glanced up at him, her warm brown eyes so full of love he couldn’t resist anymore. Softly he padded across the room and dropped to his knees in front of them to press a soft kiss into Alya’s silky soft hair. Then carefully so not to wake her he maneuverer himself to sit next to Jemma on the bunk and she wearily rested her head on his shoulder.

“I’m tired” She whispered nuzzling into his shoulder, lifting her chin to look at him and he pressed a tender kiss into her temple. Without consciously realising it his free hand interlaced fingers with her free hand. It’s a sliver off normalcy returning to their lives, to sit like this, holding hands their daughter sleeping on their laps.

“I know, me too”

It feels so natural, so easy to incline his head and for a long moment just kiss her over and over again, gently, invitingly, and tenderly. She kissed him back, following his lips and tilting her head so their kiss can deepen. They’re just two people who love each other heart and soul, seeking receiving and sharing the love and comfort they feel for each other.

It’s been such a long painful road to get here but in this moment it’s all been worth it.

“Hey” he whispered against her lips “I think we finally found something magnificent out in space.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it.
> 
> I'm sad the show's over, I've watched Agents of Shield right from the beginning of airing, during a quite a trying time in my life and it gave me something to look forward to each week and I will miss it greatly. But I'm content in having a happy ending. 
> 
> Your comments and kudos are always deeply appreciated. 
> 
> Thank you.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed.
> 
> I had to do a crash course on Theta Serpentis and triple star systems, mostly on Wikipedia so please forgive any astrology mistakes. 
> 
> Your Comments and kudos are always deeply appreciated.


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